Peter's face was a mask. "You need serious help, Kimberly."
Again, nobody picked up. Peter was getting too close, and she began to dial 9-1-1. "Just stay away."
"I'm calling Keller."
"Don't-"
"Give me the phone."
"No."
"Goddammit Kimberly, give me the-"
He lunged, and Kimberly ducked out of the way, the telephone still in hand. The cord jerked tight, yanking the receiver off the stand, and the bang as it hit the floor echoed off the walls. Before Kimberly had scrambled to her feet the siren wail of the baby sounded upstairs.
"Get away!" She dropped the receiver and ran for the door. "Stay the hell away from me!"
But Peter hadn't moved. He replaced the telephone and receiver on the stand and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "I'm not chasing you, Kimmy. I'm trying to help. I love you."
The words were a knife in her chest. "Stay away," she whispered. The car keys were squeezed so tight in her fist that they cut the skin.
"Kimmy, please-" Peter sighed and hung his head. "Whatever. You have an appointment with Keller at two. But don't be out all day. Your son needs you."
"He's not my son," Kimberly said through clenched teeth.
"Yeah? Keep acting like this and he'll grow up believing it."
She kept her eyes on him until she was out the door. Then she broke and ran for the car.
Peter didn't follow.
Chapter 6
Fitch sat crosslegged in the back room of the Rosenfeld Mission and seethed.
The woman was a pain in the ass. He'd tracked her across town not once but twice, watched her drive into the Warren Brown Tunnel and emerge where she'd entered, and she still didn't believe. He didn't blame her, not truly. He'd been the same way when he'd first woken in Rustwood. Pushing at the edges, looking for an escape. All futile in the end, but how was he supposed to explain that? The woman had just died, after all. She was still trapped in... what was it called? Kubler-Ross, stage one. Denial. Waiting to wake from a world that wasn't a dream.
But that didn't help him one bit. She wanted proof, like Fitch could just draw it out of his pocket. Which he could, of course. But the chittering thing didn't like the light, and he doubted it'd like Kimberly even more. Whatever it was, it preferred privacy.
He had to find another way. Hence, the bombs.
He'd exhausted his batch of home-made napalm while burning down the sawmill on the east end of town. Some had fuelled the fire and the rest spilled when he'd taken a turn too violently, leaving the pickup stained from bumper to bumper. All he could do was hope it didn't ignite accidentally one day.
But there were other weapons, better than fire. Fitch knew it because he'd read it, and books didn't lie. Not like people, or memories, or Mister Gull. He knew the tactics of guerilla warfare. Strike where the enemy was weakest. Pursue them in small pockets. Never aim for the head, not when you were such a small force. Instead, bleed them dead from a thousand tiny cuts.
Just as they'd done to him, so many months before.
He was alone in the back of the Rosenfeld Mission, not because the room was his by right but because Mrs Rosenfeld knew that things worked out better if Fitch was left to his own devices. They had a grudging level of respect for each other; or at least, Fitch respected Mrs Rosenfeld. She had her head on straight, even if she was too damn scared to fight.
What she truly thought of him was impossible to tell. He didn't care, so long as she gave him his space.
With the shelter humming just beyond the doors, the afternoon rush of homeless and disenfranchised lining up for their stale bread and vegetable soup, Fitch got down to business. He'd retrieved a couple pieces of old steel pipe from a construction site just off Hardaway Avenue, and now he was inspecting the threaded ends, seeing how tightly he could screw down a cap. It was rare to see anything actually being built in Rustwood - more common for buildings to simply spring up overnight, like seeds watered and left to bloom. He didn't know whether it was because they worked fast in Rustwood or if he just wasn't paying attention, whether the town itself was less important than what parts of it he could destroy.
Either way, he had the pipes. The explosives had been slightly more difficult to obtain, but in the years since the mining operations had gone out of business he'd harvested enough black powder to pack into a whole box full of pipe bombs. All that was left were the fuses and blasting caps, along with an assortment of shrapnel - screws, washers, twists of wire, pennies...
Just the sort of thing to blow a nunnery apart. And when he dragged Kimberly Archer out of her safe little house and showed her the wreckage, showed her what actually walked around beneath those black robes, she'd believe. She'd have to.
He was screwing the cap on the first bomb into place when someone knocked on the door. Fitch froze. The pipe trembled in his hands.
Another knock. Then a whisper. "You in there?"
Fitch relaxed. It was Rosenfeld. Lot of people who slept there figured she was a saint but Fitch suspected she had other reasons. He'd never met anyone who did anything out of the goodness of their own heart. There was always a motive. A debt to be paid.
He tucked the half-constructed pipe bomb away beneath a blanket before opening the door. Mrs Rosenfeld peered through the gap; a small East-African woman, black hair pulled back in a frizzy bun, showing bright white teeth behind dark lips. "You doing alright in there?"
"Just fine," Fitch replied. "Don't worry yourself."
She glanced back down the hall, and something cold tightened around Fitch's heart. "There're people asking after you."
"Here now?"
"I told them I never heard of you. You been getting up to anything bad?"
"No Ma'am." Fitch grinned at the old joke. He'd never asked how old Mrs Rosenfeld was, and she'd done him the same courtesy, but it felt good to defer to her when he was in her house.
"What's under there, then?" She pointed through the gap with one skinny finger, to the pile of blankets Fitch had tossed over his equipment. "I told you, no stealing while you're here, and no-"
"I'm not making trouble." Fitch eased the door closed, making sure not to catch her fingers in the gap. "I'll come out for lunch."
"You'd better, or-" Her noise was cut off as the door clicked shut, and Fitch sagged into the corner, resting one hand on his pipe bombs as if to check that they were still there.
It wasn't irrational, he reminded himself. Things had gone missing before. Vanished out from between his fingers, like the town had decided it had no more need for them. But as long as he stayed quiet, stayed under cover and away from windows...
The thing in his pocket squeaked. Poor thing was hungry. He let it suckle on his finger a while, tiny teeth scraping at the skin, not hard enough to puncture, before returning to his bombs. The problem that he kept running up against was the fuse. The blasting caps he'd stolen were thin metal rods as wide around as a lead pencil that needed to be inserted securely through the screw-down cap and into the heart of the powder. For that, he needed to drill a perfectly sized hole through the cap. For that he needed a drill press, and he didn't have the first clue who to ask. His father had a workshop somewhere in Vermont with all the right equipment, but Vermont was a million miles away. Fitch didn't know if the old man was still alive. Most days he couldn't remember the man's name.
A temporary setback. Rustwood High had a woodshop. Break a window, drill the caps, and run. Then he'd have his explosions and his proof. He couldn't wait to see Kimberly’s face when he brought her back one of their heads-
Another knock at the door. Fitch sighed. "What is it?"
"I..."
It was Mrs Rosenfeld again, but the hush made Fitch's stomach turn. He crept to the door. "Is it safe?" he whispered.
"I think they're watching," came the reply. "You should go."
"Front or back?"
"Jesus, Fitch, honey, what've you gotten yourself into?" A pause. "Back."
It
was the work of a moment to bundle up his equipment and sling it into his battered canvas pack. The thing squeaked in indignation as he rushed about the room, and he thrust his left hand into the pocket, trying to calm it. It didn't work. The thing felt his panic and thrashed harder.
He didn't know who was outside, but he could guess. The police would walk right in, but if they were waiting beyond the doors then they were something altogether worse. There were strange rules in Rustwood, set in place by whatever creature lived in the cracks, and those rules kept it out of the shelter. Whether it was because they needed permission to enter like vampires in Hammer Horror flicks, or because the shelter had a strange power to it, Fitch didn't know. What he did know was that he had to move before they circled around and blocked his only exit. Mrs Rosenfeld would happily keep him fed for weeks, but the things waiting out there didn't need to eat at all. There was no way to win the waiting game.
"Hush," he told the thing, and stroked what he thought was its neck with one trembling finger. "Hush now." He peered out into the corridor. Mrs Rosenfeld was gone. At one end was the soup kitchen, a long hall divided down the middle by an old oak table where the town's homeless slurped down soup and picked chunks of potato from their beards. At the other end, the door to the back lot.
He slipped out silently. Afternoon sunlight gleamed behind a thin curtain of rain. The clouds were light enough that Fitch pretended for a moment that they might eventually clear. His pickup was parked on the far side of the lot, nose out, ready for a sudden escape. The door clicked shut behind him.
He saw them immediately. Past the line of battered cars, beyond the chain-link fence that surrounded the lot. Four of the bastards, two men on the right and a man and woman approaching from the left. Just like he'd thought, they weren't police. They were dressed in thrift-shop couture, one of the men wearing jogging shorts and a plaid shirt, the woman in a cheap blue power-suit, the rain plastering her blonde hair to her cheeks.
All four wore sunglasses, huge Elton John style aviators, obscuring not just their eyes but their brows and cheekbones.
They saw him at the same moment he saw them. The woman motioned her three friends in. They smiled in unison, baring impossibly white teeth. "Fitch, baby! We're here to help!"
There was something in the woman's voice that made Fitch's stomach curl into a tight knot. He ran. The pickup was less than fifty yards away but every step felt like a mile. The weight of the pack was immense and the thing in his pocket squealed and chittered as his jacket slapped against his thigh. The woman in the blue suit stalked across the lot, her friend close behind, and on Fitch's right the other two men were climbing the fence, chain link jingling as they clambered over the top and dropped into the gravel.
"Where're you going, baby?" The woman walked like she had all the time in the world, swinging her hips, pouting as Fitch jammed the key into the door. "You know who wants to talk to you. Got big things to discuss. Why're you running, honey?"
The key turned and Fitch scrambled into his pickup, tossing his backpack across the passenger seat. "Leave me alone!"
The woman kept coming. Rainwater pearled on her sunglasses and ran over her lips. "Fitch, baby, we know your real name. You can't keep running."
He tried to yank the door shut but she was too fast, jamming her hand into the gap. Steel crunched on flesh as the edge of the door slammed on her palm. Blood ran over her fingers. She pressed her face to the window, her cheeks leaving greasy smears on the glass. If the woman was in pain, she gave no sign. "Give it up," she said. "Wherever you go, we'll feel the itch."
"Fuck off!" Fitch cranked the key and the engine caught. He was holding the door closed as best he could but the woman was strong, forcing her way through the gap. The steel edge of the door scraped skin from her forearm in strips. The others were closing in, sprinting across the lot, the man in the plaid shirt circling the pickup, looking for an opening. He grabbed at the side mirror, and Fitch saw something squirm inside his sleeve. Light winked on spurs of ivory.
There was no other way out. Fitch let go of the door long enough to ram the pickup into reverse and hit the gas.
The door swung open as the car leapt back, and the woman was spun about, her face cracking against the window. Her sunglasses were smashed from her face and in the moment before she blinked Fitch saw that her eyes weren't eyes at all but blank and white and bony.
Then she fell into the gravel, scattering the stones behind her. The man in plaid jumped away as Fitch pulled the pickup around, and the other two stood aside as he gunned the engine and aimed for the gates.
He saw, in the rear-view, the woman standing with her hands over her eyes. "I feel you!" she called. "You're under my skin, Fitch! We'll find you!"
Fitch kept his lips pressed firmly together, suppressing the urge to vomit. He swung the pickup out on to Central Avenue, slammed the door shut and aimed for the hills, the unfinished pipe bombs clattering beside him in his pack. The thing in his pocket mewled, and Fitch cupped it inside the fabric, letting it crawl across his knuckles and nibble his palms.
"It's okay," he whispered. "Can't hurt us. I got you. I got you just fine."
* * *
Bo Tuscon suckled water from the faucet and wiped his mouth with the back of one scabby hand. He'd woken on the floor, curled on the cold boards, his back aching and his skull on fire. A migraine, the worst so far, bright and intense. A star gone supernova behind his eyes.
What had he dreamed? That he'd kissed her. Yes, her lips on his, her soft lips, her hand against his chest. Her fingers curling like claws, the little sharp claws of a songbird pricking the skin of his breast. She'd moaned in his ear... or had it been a scream?
It didn't matter. Only a dream. Bo was having a lot of bad dreams lately. It was the flu getting to him, the same sickness that was tightening his chest and making it hard to breathe. A harsh, scraping disease building a nest in his throat, dragging nails through his trachea every time he swallowed.
It was exhausting. The sickness left him weak, stumbling, his eyes gummy and his mouth tasting of acid. He woke sometimes and forgot where he was, where he'd been. The past few days were a blur. This wasn't his house, he knew that much, but which friend had invited him to stay? And who'd left the mess in the basement?
He dragged his way to the parlour and stared out through the filmy curtains. The house was a wreck, the walls swollen with mould and the doors barely hanging from busted hinges. The stairs groaned beneath his weight like they were about to collapse and only one light in the entire building worked, a bulb hanging in the bathroom so coated in dust that the room stank of smoke every time he went to wash his face.
He couldn't recall anyone he knew who lived in such a place. Another nurse, an old classmate, a friend of a friend who'd let him crash on the sofa? There must've been someone. Why would he be there otherwise?
For a moment he thought about going home to his own bed, his own bathroom, where all the lights worked and the walls didn't bow outward with accumulated damp. Where there wasn't always the sound of crying floating up from the basement. He thought about stumbling back to St Jeremiah's and asking Keller to work him over, see if it was just a flu or something more severe like meningococcal, or the blister sickness. God, if he had the same infection as old Mister Friedman... He didn't know if he'd wait for the specialist to arrive. He'd just find a gun and clamp his teeth on the cold steel.
Yeah, he thought. A diagnosis would help the panic. But first he needed something to eat.
The rain was coming down heavy, almost as bad as the day he'd skidded out on the mountain pass coming down from St Jeremiah's. That night was just as tangled in his memories. Had there been another car? A woman, perhaps? He didn't even know if he'd driven home. He'd simply woken in the dripping, rotten shithole, and had slept there ever since.
Except for the dream. The dream of Jacinta.
Something moved in the rain outside the house, and Bo jumped back, letting the curtain fall. A van passing by,
high-beams cutting through the tumult. Bo watched as the red glare of tail lights receded and vanished. His palms itched. He didn't know why he was so jumpy. Maybe the headache or the pain in his throat. Maybe the dream still turning over in the back of his head.
And God, he was hungry.
He'd been eating, he knew that, but it felt as if the food wasn't reaching his stomach. Microwave pie wrappers were scattered in the corners and he'd devoured everything in the refrigerator, blocks of parmesan and raw carrots and yoghurt weeks past its used-by date.
He'd wondered, at the time, whether his friend would mind him devouring their entire stock of groceries. But he'd been sleeping there for weeks and nobody had showed. He was alone in a strange house.
Well. Alone aside from whatever kept crying in the basement. But thinking about that made his head hurt. Easier to pretend it wasn't there at all.
And then, through the rotten curtain, he saw her.
A tall woman walking through the rain, an umbrella propped on her shoulder, water falling away in sheets. Black slacks, coat down to her knees, blown back by the wind. He couldn't make out her face but he knew from the way she walked that it was Jacinta. No way to mistake her gait, her fine fingers, the way the light bounced off her high cheekbones.
He didn't know what'd brought her out to this dump, but she was there and the hunger was intense. Almost agonising. His throat was full of razors.
Dimly, a voice in the back of his mind said, It's not her. You beat the shit out of Jacinta and dragged her away. Goddamnit, what're you doing?
He had to talk to her. Had to have her. His hand was on the doorknob.
Wake up! Fucking wake up!
Bo eased out into the rain. Jacinta was walking fast, heels clicking on the cement, already almost around the corner. He stumbled after her, clutching his stomach. "Hey!"
She looked over her shoulder without breaking her stride. Her hand tightened on the stem of her umbrella.
Rust: One Page 6
